If we compare a person's life path to a bumpy road with relatively smooth places and deep holes, then in the world of Ouroboros, this road is flooded with water, hiding the roughness from the person walking on it. This water represents illusion. Where there are holes in the road, indicating a lack of something, there is a lot of water-illusions. A person walking along this metaphorical road, flooded with illusions, does not see its roughness and can stumble on a bump or fall into a pit. A person who has passed the ouroboric stage and matured into an adult personality is devoid of illusions. They live in the real world and clearly see the road they are walking on: they see the bump that must be crossed and the pit that must be bypassed. Such a person can minimize troubles from the unevenness of the «road» and plan their life because they know where they are going and how to make the journey from point A to point B as comfortable and safe as possible.
I have already written that true authenticity, or full-value, is characteristic only of a psychologically mature person and is not available to an infantile one. A mature person knows exactly who they are and can rely on this knowledge in their daily life; they have no need to compare themselves with anyone, or if they do, it does not disrupt their inner equilibrium. The ouroboric personality, however, can only understand who they are by comparing themselves to others and determining if they are better or worse, or by comparing themselves to their own reference pattern and finding that they are always worse.
In the structure of the infantile personality, "ouroboric full-value" is the simplest and most linear concept. As Oscar Wilde said, "I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm always satisfied with the best". To achieve ouroboric full-value, one must connect with their reference pattern and realize all the details that comprise it. This seems straightforward, but the challenge lies in how to actually do it. Inferiority is like the ocean – vast and deep. Let's try to make sense of it.
While studying the structure of my personality, I had recurring dreams where I was walking barefoot on a dirty floor (in the common hall of my apartment building, in a public toilet) or on the dirt of the street (on my way from work to home). Sometimes, I would suddenly notice I was shoeless, or I was forced to take off my shoes by a public toilet worker who insisted they were clean and I would dirty them, despite the floor being covered in wet mud. In the dream, nothing prevented me from washing my feet and putting my shoes back on, but for some reason, I didn't do it. Reflecting on these dreams, I realized they symbolized «inferiority» (ouroboric «unhappiness» or vulnerability), a humiliated and helpless state I periodically sink into when comparing my life to my reference pattern or to others.